Before the popularity of my herb books, before Amazon gave the opportunity for small authors to publish their work, even before I had heard of blogs, I had written three books. There is one remaining copy of each here, created and bound at a copy store, their pages stained. I wrote three plant based cookbooks and sold them at farmer’s markets and at my little shop on Main street. They sold surprisingly well, I thought, considering I lived in a small town where the common occupation was rancher. But as more and more people began to seek out healthier ways of eating, ways to beat disease, and young people began cooking for themselves, folks around there were looking for ideas.

This recipe is in my first book, Gone Vegan; Hooked on Brilliant Health and Beauty and Deliriously Good Food! It is a basic formula for Quick Bread. We love banana bread, pumpkin bread, or even savory bread, like onion. This recipe easily changes to what you have on hand. It is nice to be able to use one bowl, whip up some bread, and have it done in an hour. Yesterday I made Cranberry Walnut Bread with a touch of rosemary. See what you come up with!

Basic Quick Bread Recipe

2 1/2 cups of whole wheat pastry flour or unbleached white flour

1 1/2 cups of brown sugar

1/4 teaspoon of salt

1 T baking powder

1 ts of yeast dissolved in 1/4 cup of water

1 cup of water or plant milk

1/3 cup of oil

1 cup of nuts

1/2 cup fruit

Mix everything together and pour into greased bread pan. Bake at 350 degrees for 1 hour or until bread is golden brown and a knife inserted into the center comes out clean.

Variations

For the cranberry bread, I used 2 cups of white flour and 1/2 cup of whole wheat. I used walnut oil. I did 1 cup of walnuts and 1/2 cup of frozen cranberries (the moisture content required the bread to cook a little longer), and added 1 teaspoon of minced rosemary.

You can decrease the sugar, use white sugar, honey, agave, or maple.

Add savory dried onion and chives or red chile powder.

You could use lemon oil and orange juice as the liquid to make a fruitier bread.

Add 1 teaspoon of spices.

Maybe combine raisins and pecans. Currants and pine nuts. Eliminate the nuts altogether and just add 2 bananas. Feel free to play with this recipe. Cooking is all about experimentation. Just try to stay with the basic formula and you will be alright!

I am seriously considering testing my way through the three books and creating one book of great plant based recipes!